Lean on Me
by Younger Dr. Grey
Summary: Santana makes a new friend in Blaine. Post-"Sexy"


**Title:** Lean on Me  
><strong>Author<strong>: _youngerdrgrey_  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> one-sided Brittany/Santana  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Santana makes a new friend in Blaine. Post-"Sexy"  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T  
><strong>WarningsSpoilers:** None  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I own nothing. All rights for the characters and the world go to their owners (like Ryan Murphy and FOX). I, in no way, believe – or would lead others to believe – that I own _Glee_. I am merely a fan of the television show who has ideas for things that RIB could do/could've done.

**Author's Note:** I figured Blaine needed to interact with some ND members and Santana just seemed like the perfect one for a bit of Anderson advice. Please review if you read.

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><p><strong>(11) LEAN ON ME  
><strong>

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><p>And even though it's probably the lamest possible way to spend the night, Santana still sits for hours on the ground outside of Crawford Country Day. She waits patiently for some sign of life, but the most she gets is the creaking of the boards and gates by the grand entrance. For a boarding school, the place certainly seems as empty as any other educational facility on a Saturday. Even the girls who are caged within endless iron-clad bars have something to do tonight. It begs the question of why the most in-demand female at William McKinley is sitting on the ground alone instead of teasing some unruly jocks at a party, or making out with her boyfriend.<p>

To be completely honest, the last thing she wants is to be around Sam right now. More than that, she really doesn't want to be anywhere where she could run into Brittany. Life with Brittany is a mess these days. One horrible, confusing, painful mess that really isn't what Santana had in mind for what would happen after her admission. She had told herself one thousand times that Britt loved her, or that Sam would be fine without his rebound girl, or even that she could runaway to a place like Crawford Country Day and become celibate and lonely for eternity if anything went wrong. It's pretty obvious which scenario stands center stage today. Maybe it's better this way. Surely, life in an all-girls boarding school trumps living in Lima as, well, what she is.

She can't even bring herself to say it. She's thought it a few times, in passing, but she can't say that word. She hears it every day on campus, passing through the lips of some sagging, brain-lacking, masculine pile of putrid waste that surprisingly showed up to class that day. Yet, she can't say that word about herself. There's another more definitive and finite term for women like her. She doesn't say that one either.

And why should she? It's ridiculous. She's only seventeen. Why should she have to know now? It's the labels that make loving people so hard. If she loves Sam, she's straight. If she loves Brittany, she's gay. If she loves them both, she's bisexual (or as her mother deems it, a greedy little bitch). Though, if she's being completely honest again, she only loves one of them, and it's not the one with the trouty mouth.

A sigh escapes her lips softly. It mingles in with the chilly night air before fading away with her chances of being a normal girl. Of course it isn't enough that she doesn't a perfect voice, or great grades, or white skin and blonde hair and big boobs; she has to be a lesbian on top of it.

Oh God. It feels natural to think it. So much more than any other term, like bicurious, or questioning, or any of the other ways she could try and trick herself out of believing the truth. She's a lesbian. (If this is her grand revelation, where's the euphoria? Where's the happily ever after that Disney has promised her since day one?)

Behind her, a voice clears. Melodic and rising slightly, the sound breaks the bubble that has been forming around Santana. Her gaze snaps from nothingness to the man a bit away. The shock of seeing another person at all outweighs any fear she would normally have for her own safety. For a fleeting second, she wonders if she has said any of her thoughts aloud. The clammy feeling in her throat answers the question for her.

Santana takes another look at the figure. One glance and she knows just who this is. Though previously hard to differentiate in the blur of conformity, Blaine Anderson has a way of resonating in the minds of those he meets. Santana is no different. As it sinks in just who has found her, Santana calms from the rush she had barely noticed. Another sigh, one of relief, escapes, and she waits for him to do something.

Blaine glances around the area. His gaze repeatedly flickers from the girl on the ground to their surroundings, as if the idea does not compute inside of his private-school brain. Perhaps all of the gel he uses to slick back his hair is rotting away at his brain cells. Or, possibly, he just doesn't understand why she is sitting on the ground miles away from her town in front of a school she would normally mock and scoff at. He clears his throat for a second time before making eye contact.

Santana stares into those beauties as if they hold the secret to life. Instead of finding answers, she finds ill-placed worry towards herself, something someone who barely knows her should certainly not be feeling. It must be some sort of curly-haired gay guy thing, empathy.

She breaks the connection. A leaf flips over in the wind. It tumbles in ringlets like the ones Brittany used to wear when they were younger. Suddenly, it crashes into the polished dress shoes and falls back to the ground. The thought of falling reminds Santana of her present predicament. She turns back to Blaine.

"What do you want?" Her tone isn't nearly as forceful and sassy as predicted. The hours in the cold have numbed her attitude. Hopefully, he still catches on.

"To fill the hearts of many with a new love for music," he answers.

He's carefree; she likes that. Not enough though to remain unfazed by the fact that his punctuating smile is more of a smirk, or that he didn't answer the question she was actually asking.

She scrambles together some gusto and rephrases. "I meant what are you doing across town and staring me down, Dalton?"

He quirks an eyebrow. "Well, McKinley," and he pauses for effect as any true performer seems to do, "I spotted a slumped, sullen figure from the road and decided to check in."  
>How gallant.<p>

Santana tells him, "That was pretty dumb. You could have rushed out of your dapper little mini-coup and found some rotting, mutilated, messed up corpse defiling these pearly gates."

If her comment affects him, he doesn't show it on his normally expressive face.

He deadpans, "Well, that would have ruined my Saturday."

About now she stops wondering why Kurt transferred to Dalton and not somewhere else; Blaine certainly has a calming effect, even at the worse times. Even so, he is not exactly welcome at Santana's pity party.

"You say 'well' a lot," she points out. He nods slowly, accepting the fact. He has no other reaction, as if he really is some sort of perfect teen robot sent down to fix the problems of the McKinley gleeks.

"You're hiding from your problems," he returns.

The irony isn't lost on her. Kurt has told them all about the success story that is Blaine and how he escaped his demons through Dalton.

"You did it first," she says.

"You have horrible posture."

"Your hair looks like roadkill."

"You told your best friend that you loved her and she rejected you."

Ouch.

Damn.

The sting shows in her face just as the realization sweeps across his. If she weren't so busy feeling hurt and exposed, she would have reveled in cracking his perfectly composed exterior. Alas, all she can do is go back to watching the nothingness flitter before her.

Blaine speaks up after a while. "I did not mean to say that," he says to her. Simple, concise, almost as if he's afraid anything more than the norm will send her running off to an even farther away location. She should feel something about being treated like a feral animal. She doesn't.

How many people know? The thought pops into her head so quickly that it stuns her. Back before she approached Brittany, it had occurred to her that a public gesture would appeal to her love a lot more. Of course, that just mans that more people could have heard her. It's not every day that Santana Lopez cries (though, it has been happening a bit more often these past few months), nor is it every day that the word 'love' passes through her lips. How many people heard what she was saying? How many people know about what happened with Brittany? And who are they? Are they the supportive people who won't make a big deal, or the not supportive people who will find ways to slowly crack her and break her for feelings she has no control over?

Santana looks back up to him quickly. She asks, "How did Kurt find out?"

"He didn't. Rachel-" the name makes Santana groan. The little hobbit really needs to stop paying so much damn attention to everything. Blaine repeats the name a bit more forcefully. "Rachel heard and she wasn't sure if she should do anything about it. She asked me what I thought."

"And you thought the best course of action would be tracking me down and forcing me to confront my feelings? Good luck with that," Santana says.

He shakes his head.

"I actually thought the best thing would be leaving you alone. However, it's three days later and you're camped out pretty far from home when you should be on a date with your boyfriend, so, I'm here."

Santana pushes herself up from the ground. The quick transition into standing after so long of being seated makes the world spin. She attributes her churning stomach to that.

"I'm not some little charity case. I don't need help, especially not yours."

"Why?" he asks. She blinks at him, unsure of how she is supposed to answer that. He goes on, "Why not my people? Is it because I'm gay? I assure you that love is love, no matter who it is you're falling for. But, I'm guessing that's the problem. You're falling for the wrong people and-"

She interrupts him with a hand forcefully thrust in his direction. Her words follow soon after, finally having found the proper amount of sass and anguish she's been missing for a while. She snipes, "Maybe that 'I've been there and I came out on the other side' sappy, woe and wangst bullshit worked with Hummel, but it sure as hell won't work for me. I don't want to hear you preaching to me."

"Then what do you want?" he asks. Again, she has no idea how to respond. He does not expand this time, leaving her to debate all to herself how far his question goes.

What she wants from him is to leave her alone. No. Actually, she kind of wants him to stay. At least then she isn't alone. Maybe he could talk about some of the things she wants to know. But, not so direct and honest. She isn't sure what she wants. It'd be easy to just listen to him tell her his story, but she has questions, loads of questions, that she doubts she'll be able to ask. How did he know? How did his parents take it? Is he sure he's really gay, or is he bisexual? Is it okay to be bisexual? How come there aren't many things on them anywhere? How come everyone is either straight or gay? Is it even worth coming out? What does she do if everyone she knows turns on her?

Gay guys and gay girls get different reactions from people. A bunch of girls who come out as gay get sexually assaulted by guys trying to prove that all a girl really needs is the right guy fucking her. (Excuse her language.) What if the guys try it with her? They'll probably talk about how she used to want it and how much she loved it before. They won't care that the rumors about her are more than what she has actually done. She's done a lot, but not with every single guy who claims to have done something with her. She may not be a virgin, but she certainly doesn't want to be forced into anything. She wants, well…

"Love." She waits a second before glancing up at him. "I want to love someone and not have it matter. I want to walk down the streets and not be called a slut because I can't make up my mind, or because I'm comfortable enough with my body to have some fun with it. I'm the cliche character in every gay novel, the one who falls for the best friend who just can't love me back. So, uh, I think I just want to get out of here because this town doesn't really give many options. There's no secret gay clubs, or big supporters who will take me in if my family kicks me out. I don't have Burt as a dad, or Carole as a mom; I have old-fashioned parents who want to talk to me about prom dresses and the cutest boys on the block. What do I tell them, Blaine? How do I say to my mom that I just want to be with a girl for the rest of my life? Or, even, that I don't care who I'm with so long as I'm happy?"

He seems to think it over. Then, he answers, "You tell them that. And anything else that comes to mind before they start talking to you, at you, about you. You don't leave. You don't back down. Stand your ground and make sure that they know this isn't a joke, or an experiment, but your life. If they can handle it, show them some movies or videos to show that gay people can live happy, productive lives. Show them _Grey's Anatomy_. Successful gay doctors, can't beat that."

She laughs a bit. That's what she needs, to give her parents hope she'll become a doctor. Still, it's not a bad idea.

Santana gazes up, spotting the moon over head. It's probably late. She yawns before she can stop herself. Blaine quirks an eyebrow.

"It's getting late. Maybe we should both head back," she says.

He nods. "On one condition, earlier, you said something about a mutilated corpse, were you trying to tell me something?"

Tell him something? Tell him what-oh. Her eyes widen. She quickly shoots that thought down. "I am not suicidal. I don't hurt myself."

"Good. For that, though, there is a secret gay club, and a teen club, and a million hotlines and videos - if ever, you feel like you need it."

She wonders for a moment if he has ever needed it. She decides against asking.

"I won't. But, uh, should I ever need it - need to talk - we should do this again, Dalton," she says.

"Maybe indoors next time," he suggests.

"Fine by me."

She imagines it, wasting the day chatting in some coffee shop with Blaine. She has to admit, there are definitely lamer ways to spend the night.

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><p><strong>I'm personally not a huge fan of the ending. What did you think?<strong>


End file.
